Chapter Text
She had no memory of what happened.
Ahsoka woke up slowly, her head pounding, and she groaned softly. She was sitting… in a chair?
She was sitting in a chair.
She blinked several times, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, and stared at the vastness of space through the viewport that was in front of her.
There were two more chairs in front of her as well. Only one of them was occupied.
She heard a soft but familiar groan and watched as someone else sat up in the other chair.
It was Obi-Wan.
But the other chair was empty.
The controls for the ship they were in all blinked normally in front of her, but the pilot’s seat was empty. Ahsoka looked around, wondering if maybe, Anakin was somewhere else on the ship, because he wasn’t in the cockpit.
“General Skywalker, we thought we had lost you for a- General?” Rex asked as a hologram of him appeared in front of herself and Obi-Wan on the dashboard of the ship.
“Where’s Anakin?” Obi-Wan asked, turning to look at Ahsoka.
She shrugged.
She didn’t know, but there was now a sense of unease that filled the cockpit.
“I’ll go look for him,” Ahsoka muttered and quickly stood up to leave the room.
“Skyguy?” She called out as she looked at an empty cot.
“Skyguy?” She called out again as she walked further back into the ship, a small common room and medbay that were both empty greeting her.
“Master!” Ahsoka shouted now, but there was no response.
She began to turn on the spot, her breathing growing faster and faster, her heart pounding in her chest. She couldn’t sense him either- the other end of their training bond was met with static.
It wasn’t broken as if he had died, but there was just… nothing there on the other side that was reaching back out to her.
“Anakin!” Ahsoka yelled, now in a panic.
She gasped and turned around when the door to where she was slid open, only to be met by a worried looking Obi-Wan who was standing in the doorway.
“You couldn’t find him?” Obi-Wan asked, worry seeping into his tone.
Ahsoka shook her head.
“I- I thought he was here with us, Master, I thought that-“
“Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan said while holding a hand up.
“It’s alright, we can figure something out. Perhaps Anakin is still on the surface of where we were earlier,” he suggested.
“Where we were earlier?” Ahsoka asked and Obi-Wan frowned.
“What do you remember?” Obi-Wan asked, and Ahsoka stopped biting her lip, instead crossing her arms over her chest as she stopped to think.
What did she remember.
“Not much…” she responded after a moment.
“That’s not surprising,” Obi-Wan muttered.
“But we should still be at the coordinates that we were at when we first went to investigate the distress signal, do you remember that part?” He asked her and she nodded.
“I remember us going to investigate, but it gets really blurry after that…” Ahsoka replied.
“Let’s see if we can circle around and land on the surface again,” Obi-Wan suggested and Ahsoka nodded, following him out of the common room and back into the cockpit.
She slid into the seat that Anakin had been sitting in when the mission first started.
But the seat was cold now.
“What do you mean, sir?” Rex asked when the two of them were settled again.
“There’s nothing here, these coordinates are empty,” he pointed out.
“No, no there was something that was just here, we had landed on the surface of a planet,” Obi-Wan responded as he grabbed a yoke and steered the ship around.
“Keep your eyes peeled, Ahsoka,” he said, and she nodded.
But there was no planet, only the vastness and emptiness of space that greeted them back through the viewport.
Obi-Wan circled around again.
Ahsoka ran more scans again.
But there was nothing.
“Master,” Ahsoka whispered, her eyes burning with tears that were threatening to spill over.
“Let’s head back to the Resolute for now, and contact the council,” Obi-Wan replied quietly, steering the ship back towards the hangar, and away from the stars that seemed to twinkle and tease them.
Ahsoka didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay there and fly around over and over until they found Anakin, even if that meant they ran out of fuel first. But she couldn’t find the words to say that admist all of the panic that seemed to close off her throat, so she nodded numbly, watching as the stars were replaced by the durasteel of the ship’s hangar.
“Where’s General Skywalker?” Rex asked as he walked towards the two of them in the hangar.
“Anakin has gone missing,” Obi-Wan replied and sighed deeply.
“Missing?” Rex asked, his eyes widening.
“How? You were only gone for a few minutes!”
“I don’t know Rex, but we need to get in touch with the Jedi Council and see what they have to say,” Obi-Wan replied, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Rex then looked at Ahsoka, and his gaze softened.
“I’m sure we’ll find him soon,” Rex said and Obi-Wan nodded.
“I hope so,” he replied and then began to walk away, Rex and Ahsoka following him.
By the time they had reached the briefing room, Cody had joined them as well, and the four of them stood around a HoloTable, watching as the other members of the Jedi Council appeared in front of them as holograms.
“Missing, you say?” Yoda asked leaning on his cane.
“Missing how?” Mace asked.
“We woke up and Anakin wasn’t there,” Obi-Wan replied, his arms crossed tightly over his torso- almost as if he were hugging himself.
“He simply vanished?” Mace asked, lifting an eyebrow and Obi-Wan nodded.
“We searched the whole ship, master,” Ahsoka added on.
“And when you left… this place, was Skywalker with you?” Shaak Ti asked and Obi-Wan hesitated.
“Master Kenobi?”
He looked at Ahsoka, and then back at the council.
“I don’t recall leaving.”
“Do you, Padawan Tano?” Mace asked, looking at her.
“No,” Ahsoka whispered, and Mace and Yoda looked at each other.
“What is the last thing you two remember?” Mace asked and sighed deeply.
“We were standing in some kind of altar- Anakin was next to me,” Obi-Wan began.
“And?” Shaak Ti asked.
“Then the roof collapsed,” Ahsoka added on, surprised at where the memory came from.
“Found yourselves back on the ship after this, did you?” Yoda asked.
“We did,” Obi-Wan replied, clearly not happy with the response that he was able to give.
“Something must be missing, masters,” Ahsoka interjected, and they all looked at her.
Her posture shrunk slightly, she bit her lip, but she stood her ground.
“Ahsoka is correct, we are clearly missing several pieces to this puzzle,” Plo replied.
“Perhaps it would be best for you to return to the temple where we can discuss this in person.”
“No!” Ahsoka exclaimed, and then she shrunk back further, her face heating up in embarrassment at her own outburst.
“Master Skywalker is still out here somewhere, we need to be looking for him,”
“No one is saying that we shouldn’t be looking Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan replied.
“But we don’t even know where to start.”
“There are resources at the temple that we don’t have on the ship, and the sooner we get to them, the sooner we can find Anakin,” Obi-Wan continued, his face grim.
“We are eagerly awaiting your arrival,” Mace said, and then the holograms slowly turned off, one by one.
“Should we tell Admiral Yularen to set a course for Coruscant?” Cody asked after a tense moment of silence.
“Yes please, thank you Cody,” Obi-Wan said and turned to leave.
“Come along, Ahsoka,” he said, stopping to turn to look at her before continuing again.